THE SCHEDULE: The Developing Mind, Dec 14-16, 2015
Monday (Dec 14)
Location: Forum Scientiarum, Großer Seminarraum, 1st Floor
10.30 - 11.45 Chapter 1 ‘Physical Objects’ (Chiara Brozzo)
12.00 - 13.15 Chapter 2 ‘Davidson’s Challenge’ (Gregor Hochstetter)
14.30 - 15.30 Chapter 3 ‘Object Indexes and Phenomenal Expectations’ (Victor Verdejo)
15.45 - 17.00 Butterfill talk: ‘Phenomenal Expectations Connect Core Knowledge of Objects to Thought’
17.15 - 18.30 Butterfill talk: ‘Causal Interactions’
Tuesday (Dec 15)
Locations:
10.30 - 12 Forum Scientiarum, Kleiner Seminarraum, 2nd Floor
12 - 18 Forum Scientiarum, Großer Seminarraum, 1st Floor
10.30 - 12.15 Chapter 4 ‘Colour’ (Katia Samoilova)
14.00 - 14.20 ‘Overview of Mindreading (Chapters 5 & 6)’
14.20 - 15.45 Chapter 5 ‘Mind: the Puzzle’ (Krisztina Orban)
16.15 - 18.00 Butterfill talk: Chapter 6 ‘Mind: a Solution?’
Wednesday (Dec 16)
10.30 - 12.15 Wrap up discussion (Großer Seminarraum)
14.00 - 15.30 Victor Verdejo ‘Thinking about one’s own actions' (Kleiner Seminarraum)
18.15 - 19.45 Forum Philosophicum: Stephen Butterfill 'Perceiving Mental States?’ (Alte Burse, Room X)
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Abstracts for the two talks on Dec 16
Victor Verdejo:
Thinking about one’s own actions
Answers to the question of how we think of or mentally refer to ourselves (first person thought) have a direct impact on the analysis of the ways in which we engage in interaction with others via phenomena such as mindreading, action or communication. A popular view going back to Frege takes for granted that there is a special way in which one is given to oneself. In this piece, I explore the bearing of this view on the conception of action. I argue that this received view would seem to deliver implausible pictures of intentional, public and joint action. To avoid these problems, I propose a substantial amendment of the Fregean approach according to which special ways of thinking about oneself do not determine kinds of thought and action.
Stephen Butterfill:
Perceiving Mental States
How could we come to know that another is angry about an insult or happy about an outcome? Some philosophers have defended the hypothesis that knowledge of others' anger or joy is sometimes perceptual (e.g. Smith, 2010, 2015; McNeill, 2012a,b). In this talk I consider two challenges to this hypothesis.The first challenge is to identify evidence in favour of it, or at least to explain what evidence could bear on the hypothesis. Perhaps this challenge can be met by considering categorical perception of expressions of emotion, for which there is some evidence. The second challenge is to specify a model of anger and other mental states which captures how these mental states appear to the perceivers. This is a hard challenge to meet because available models arguably render mental states imperceptible. In the last part of the talk I propose an alternative way in which knowledge of others' mental states could be acquired, one that hinges on interaction rather than perception. Reflection on what is involved in sharing a smile suggests that one route to knowledge of others’ mental states might involve interacting with them.